Sparkling Jam Punch

Last year during my canning blitz I decided to try creating one of my favourite drinks as a jam – I love raspberry lemonade so why wouldn’t raspberry lemon jam be awesome? Turns out that adding lemon rind and extra lemon juice to an already tangy raspberry jam makes it too sour for my family. Who knew?

This year I was experimenting with blueberry jam recipes in preparation for a class I was teaching on wild berry freezer jam. One of my first trials of jam turned out a bit on the sloppy side and, while tasty, was too runny for bread. Well, what to do with all this not quite great jam?

I could have tried to fix it. I could have put it on pancakes. But I am into drinks – and since making a favourite drink into jam didn’t turn out – why not make a jam into a drink? And it worked! I stirred a couple spoons full of blueberry jam into a large glass with ice and some club soda and BAM! Sparkling Blueberry Punch. Add a little lemon juice and it’s Sparkling Blueberry lemonade. My daughter went crazy for it, consumed all the sloppy jam in the fridge and started raiding the freezer for blueberry freezer jam.

So this fall I am going to see what other amazing beverages I can create using jam that was too tangy, too runny or has been sitting in my cupboard too long.